Prosecutor's book helps parents discuss sex abuse (AP)

NEW YORK - Prosecutor Jill Starishevsky was working on the case of a little girl who had been consistently raped by her stepfather when she got an idea of how she could help families prevent such horrific acts.

The girl, from a middle-class home in the Bronx, was molested starting at age 6, and like most children she didn't tell anyone. Then she saw an episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" that happened to be on children who were beaten. The message at the end of the show was simple: If you're being abused, tell a parent or a teacher.

The girl, who by then was 9 years old, told her teacher the next day.

"I thought, either Oprah needs to end every show with 'If you're being hurt, you need to tell someone,' or someone needs to do something," Starishevsky said. "All Oprah had to do was say 'Tell a teacher,' and this horrible abuse stopped."

Starishevsky, a mother of two children herself, decided she was going to write a children's book to help parents and kids deal with sexual abuse. The result, "My Body," is in the process of being published and should be in stores by the end of the year. Starishevsky has a waiting list already on her Web site.

Child sex abuse is a bigger problem than most parents would like to think. At least 60 million people claim they were molested as children, but only one in 10 children ever reports the crime, according to national statistics compiled by the advocacy group Stop the Silence.

Starishevsky sees it firsthand. As an assistant district attorney in the Bronx, she works in the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Bureau and says parents are usually shocked they didn't know what was going on in their homes.

"When children are sexually abused, they don't tell anyone, and a lot of people don't appreciate that. They think 'Oh, if it's my child, they would speak up,'" Starishevsky said.

But there are few outlets for parents to help facilitate discussion of the subject. Most books are geared toward older children and deal with a specific example of abuse, or they are clinical texts.

"Pedophiles, child predators, they arm themselves. They know what our kids like," she said. "We're going out there fighting a war naked. We're not even telling our kids what they need to hear. Of course the problem is not going away; we're not even talking about it."

Starishevsky's book is a 22-line rhyme geared toward children ages 3 to 8 that tells the story of a child who is molested by an uncle's friend and tells a parent. Illustrations show an androgynous child, so it will appeal to both boys and girls, she said.

She shopped the idea around and got a warm reception. Several publishing houses were interested, but they all wanted her to drop one line in the book -- the line where the child in the story is actually abused. The reason? The book would be too hard to market to parents.

"They wanted to just take it out. Take it out? If I take it out, why am I writing it?" Starishevsky said.

She decided to publish the book as is, by herself. Advocacy groups around the country say it will be an important tool for parents, and one organization in Los Angeles is reading the text to students. Other groups offered to finance the book for her.

Pamela Pine, director of Stop the Silence, said "My Body" fills a need because it's geared toward young children, and on average abuse of children starts at age 7.

"If parents are brave enough, hopefully this will catalyze a response to have this conversation with young kids," Pine said. "The challenge is going to be that most adults have a problem with this issue."

As for the 9-year-old, her case proceeded quickly after she reported the abuse. Starishevsky prosecuted the stepfather, the child and her teacher took the stand, and the man was convicted and jailed.

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On the Net:

http://www.howsmynanny.com/mybodybook/

http://www.stopthesilence.org/